tomato

And the Arachnid community seem especially active at this time of year. I removed all the intrusive webs the other night prior to a session, you could almost hear the spiders cursing me as they scuttled off and yes, by lunchtime the next day they were all back again, one even had a nicely wrapped cranefly in it which must have flown in when the dome was open. Perhaps I should leave them be.

This was taken with a QHY268C OSC and a IDAS NBX dual band filter, specifically chosen to better accommodate the focal ratio of the RASA8. The NBX suffered from star halos and has since been replaced with the NBZ filter.

This is with a further 26 minutes of luminance added, from a total of 2.6 hrs taken as 5 sec 'Lucky Imaging' subs to try to improve the detail in the brighter regions. I think I want to have a go at some widefield imaging now...

Yes, a thin strip of felt type black out material would do the trick, assuming there is not already an engineered safeguard, as you have identified.

According to the drawing on QHY’s website they are M2.50. I think both screws will push against the body of the camera, so each pair will need to be adjusted in unison, with the other two pairs being slackened as required. If you do need to introduce any degree of tilt adjustment, will there then be a risk of stray light entering the optical path?

And I think the preferred methodology, assuming your OSC camera has a CMOS sensor, is to use dark flats (darks with the same exposure time as your flats) rather than bias frames for the image calibration.

As far as I can see on the APP website the trial is the full software for a 30 day period, so the save function should work. If you have an image open and you press the save button and you don’t get a dialogue box asking for the file name then something isn’t right. The license details are checked when the software opens so that must be ok. You could try reinstalling or post the issue on the APP forum via the website.

If you press the save button at the top in the right hand window APP will give you the option to save a FITS, TIFF or JPEG image file, with various other options. If the stretch box is ticked to the left of the save button, a stretched image is saved. Its been a long time since I ran the trial version, I’m assuming these functions are enabled and APP just gives you a limited duration for the free trial?

3, no 4 laptops, beats my 2 plus a TV for the dome cam. Glad you currently follow my school of thought on cable management, “Let ‘em dangle!”😉

I think your approach to getting started with imaging is spot on. There have been a couple instances recently on SGL where folks have bought a lot of gear and struggled to make it all work together and alas it has ended up in the classified section a couple of months later. Get some images in the bag early on which you can be proud of (like your M31) to share with family and friends and SGL. That’s where my motivation came from to go deep into the AP rabbit hole.👍

Agreed, if it ain’t broke (from an image quality vs mount performance perspective), don’t fix it.

Just a suggestion, you could put some low power red LEDs on each leg if you find yourself tripping over them in the dark confines of the observatory. I don’t have much space at all in my dome, and although I have a pier I still bang into the counter weight arm quite regularly.

Really nice, any reason why you haven't gone with a central pier?

Back to the OP's question, there are excellent images being captured with both CCD and CMOS cameras, other factors such as the scope set up, sky quality and how may clear nights you have at your disposal could certainly influence your decision. I started out with CCD, but now have CMOS cameras, but I still use both. My latest project is a dual system attempting to use a CCD for capturing luminance and a CMOS OSC for the colour. IMHO ZWO are decent quality cameras, you wont go far wrong if you go with them, or any of the other established suppliers for that matter..

Spot on image of M33, lots of detail and nice colour balance, all from just 3.5 hrs of integration, great job.

Likewise, it is pretty robust and the developers have moved it on a lot from the early days.

Congrats to the winners, and I really enjoyed the 'Pop Art' debate that the entries prompted.

Lovely image, just recently purchased a second hand Samyang 135 with the Sony fitting so it needs a bit of fettling before I can attach my 268c to it, but I’m looking forward to it.

Great capture. Anybody who pauses even just for a few moments to contemplate what’s actually visible in this image would surely have their breath taken away.

"Big fish, swallow you whole" Sorry, its my all time favourite movie. I'm also under a Bortle 5 sky but I will have to give this a go with the RASA.

Thanks Goran, it’s my inexpert use of Pixinsight I’m afraid. I’ll take a step back and run the data again, attempting to implement all of the helpful suggestions. I will do some lucky imaging of this galaxy for the BAT project, then it’s time for a camera change or maybe dust off the RASA. Perhaps the scope change will prompt a change in the cloud cover?😉

And here is my hasty PI version. Is that extra galaxy detail real? I'm not so sure.

Sorry, I’m firmly in the Affinity Photo camp now, they actually like Astrophotography!😊

Thanks Olly. I do find the that StarTools (at least in my hands) tends to produce velvety black backgrounds, although there are options in the software to avoid this. My other usual processing workflow of APP and AP does give a more natural background and the stars are less harsh, but I currently cannot get the required colour or detail by that route. And then there is PI. Something to look at now the clouds are returning…

There are plug ins for PS which will sort out the back ground, (one called Gradient Exterminator springs to mind) and I think there are workflows on the internet that show how this can be done just with PS. Sorry I can’t provide more detail but I haven’t used PS in quite a while. I think you have had a good first go at M31, I certainly wouldn’t class it as an easy DSO imaging target.